


within the gentle heart abideth love

by amitye



Category: King Lear - Shakespeare, Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blood, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Organized Crime, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:40:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24854743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amitye/pseuds/amitye
Summary: He pushes himself up and kisses him, close mouthed, barest hint of pressure on his lips. "There, in advance. You're forgiven for my pains and possible death."Romeo's eyes flutter closed and up again and he nods and leaves, sneaking timid little glances at him as he lies back down. It's still enough to wrap him around his finger, full of surprises as he may be. Trouble is, it starts to not feel enough for Edmund.
Relationships: Romeo Montague/Edmund of Glouchester
Comments: 12
Kudos: 13
Collections: Little Black Dress Exchange 2020





	within the gentle heart abideth love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [summerdayghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerdayghost/gifts).



The Italian boy knocks on their door in late July - at least, that's what he presumes from his tawny skin and nostalgic whiffs of Mediterranean sun freckling his nose, for Edmund has, as usual, been told fuck all about this. He's fifteen or sixteen, so young his skin is uninked and only the blue M embroidered on his worn out leather jacket points at any allegiance, dark hair curling lazily like tiresmoke spirals, sunken blue eyes and soft lips pouting in ostentatious melancholy.

His father introduces them - _this lad is my friend Montague's boy, Romeo, wasn't it? He has run into some trouble and will stay with us for a while, now this is my dear boy Edgar and this is Edmund, bastard but no less loved, isn’t that right?_  
Edmund winces and seethes when his father’s hand claps heavily affectionate on his back, but the boy isn’t paying attention to an almost mystical extent, like he’s currently sucked up onto a white fluffy cloud and watching this warm family scene in mute grayscale because the Almighty, crusty old man as he is, refuses to throw out the antebellum screens 

He looks completely useless, unsurprisingly, as his father’s so called Italian allies have just been taking without giving back anything but trash for quite a few years now - always a hyena at home and a meek little lamb in the streets, the old man.  
Edmund instinctively hates him.

***

When Romeo was a child, his mother would sweeten the all year round procession of closed caskets around bullet-riddled bodies that came with being a Montague telling him that stars are the eyes of heaven, and every little light was the soul of someone he loved, watching over him in the darkness. The London sky is foggy and dim, even in summer, and none of the timid half hidden stars he sees are any match for Mercutio’s soul. He would hate it, anyway - being fixed in the sky, watching. Mercutio is a bright orange spark in reckless and likely illegal beach campfire, a firefly soaring in mad joyful spirals over a flowering field, never still.

He imagines him snorting, laughing and throwing an arm around his shoulders at such fanciful words, _Oh, I’m a firefly alright, but am I not a loyal one?_  
Romeo has always been more poet than artist and his imagination can conjure the sound of his laugh and the warmth of his body against his with mathematical precision, but he can’t see his smile without the blood trickling down his lips as he lay dying in his arms, his voice growing fainter with every curse screamed at the uncaring sky.

He unlocks his phone, hands trembling, starting a vocal message for Benvolio to tell him the stupid firefly pun and maybe, maybe hear the laugh of someone he loves sweet and untainted again, but he closes it almost at once. He doesn’t have any use for Romeo’s sappy ramblings and flights of fancy. No one ever does.  
He thinks of Mercutio again, in a way that doesn’t force him to look at his face - standing on the rooftop with sun at his back, turning him into a dark outline calling out to him, taking his hand to lead him up drainpipes and windowsills and peak into people’s windows, his heart beating frantically and a safety he will never feel again.  
He climbs out of his window smiling. 

***

Edmund never put much stock in symbolism. If he did, then he might be upset by the fact he is not invited at old Lear’s Family Dinners, those mysterious affairs where the members of the the aforementioned Families smooch each other’s rings, drink each other’s blood or whatever rituals they’ve come up with to feel like they’re royalty or men of honor or anything but washed-up weapon traffickers who can barely handle their own territory anymore, let alone carry out these expansion plans they occasionally rehash when they’re shitfaced drunk. He’s still invited to the lowercase family dinners, bastard as he is, and he can meet who he needs to meet and talk to who he needs to talk to. Therefore, tonight he is perfectly contented with his lot and the fact he can write his letter to Goneril without fear of Edgar suddenly bursting in in a moment of brotherly exuberance.

However, unshaken in his principles as he might be, when blood starts dripping down his window pane, just as he signs his name in the end of his treason elevator pitch, he does feel a certain omen of doom pierce his heart.  
He throws the balcony window open and steps out, gun in hand, convincing himself it’s a spy caught in the barbed wire and nothing more unsettling.  
Instead, on the rooftop, standing precariously balanced over the edge, he finds the Montague boy, head thrown back and arms spread to splash blood around like a terribly botched Cupid fountain.

“What fuck are you doing?” he yells, unnerved, on the off chance all that moping about blaring dreadful metal has some substance behind it and this is some elaborate ritual and not what it looks like.  
The boy jolts like he’s been struck with lighting, pointing a trembling finger in his direction. “Just go back inside and let me in peace. It’s not like anyone here would really care, right? I just want to die and not hurt anyone else.”

Edmund ponders for a split second if there’s any way he can let the poor child have his way and pass it off as some kind of accident that would not be blamed on his negligence for eons to come, but he’s on the ledge before he can come to any conclusion. He grabs Romeo’s shoulder to pull him down and he pulls a pocket knife from his jean pocket, aiming it vaguely around Edmund’s neck.  
“You’re going to let me go. Or kill me, if you wish - I'm not particular,but I'm not going to let you stop me. I’ve killed two people, and if I really have to-” 

His fist tightens menacingly, but Edmund has his doubts this Venetian blown-glass toy prince, who spent most of the time since he came in reading and sighing in his room and crying on the phone with his cousin, has done anything such. He tries to make it touchy feely.  
"Look" he starts slowly. "I understand you very well may have your own shit going on, but your father sent you here to keep you safe. We're responsible for you. My father and my brother will be upset to know they failed you, and what of your family? I'd think an honorable young man-"

“Do you know where y’all can shove this fucking _honor?_  
Edmund’s bones screech painfully when he collides against the tiles, but manages to grab the boy’s wrist before the blade goes through his eye. He screams and slashes ineffectually just two inches above his face, so Edmund twists his arm and flips him over, grabbing both his wrists and pressing a knee on his chest.

He bursts into tears and tries valiantly to kick him, such that he almost loses his balance and distantly wonders how this fight would go, if this boy wasn’t half-crazed and bleeding out.  
"No one here has any kind of honor and certainly not me," he spits out when all effort is fruitless. "How naive do you think I am? It was Mercutio who was all worried about me being dishonorable and submissive and all that. Who died for my honor, he said. I'm getting the better bargain dying for his love, since at least that exists!"

Edmund pushes the gun against his temple. He’s either too quick for him to try to free himself in the second he takes to leave his arm and get the gun or he’s too incensed in his babbling to realize, but once the metal touches his skin his eyes widen and he freezes like a docile puppy, his chest rising and falling quicker and quicker. Edmund smirks.  
“What, second thoughts? Is his love not worth it?”

This does get him a feeble, if enthusiastic punch in the stomach. He winces, but manages to snatch the knife from the boy’s hand. He cuts his shirt open, eliciting a strangled cry and terribly cute fearful look in his eyes, and starts binding up his wrists. The spider web of frenzied slashes on them frankly look like a rabid cat got at him and he definitely didn’t slit his veins open, but he still cuts two extra strips and ties them just a little over the bandage to slow the bleeding.

“Is this Mercutio your boyfriend?” he asks casually, purposefully tying the strips a little tighter before he adjusts them to make him hiss.

“He was my _love_. Boyfriend's not enough. He was beautiful and wild and brave and he… he died for me. The Capulets-"

"Stop, that's enough. I don't want to intrude in your grief."  
The boy looks up, frustrated at the bait-and-switch, hanging from his every word and feeling he presumes no one else has cared to listen to in a while spilling out of his eyes. He’s so easy. Edmund finds it endearing - he suppose he might have found Edgar’s earnest innocence more amusing if it didn’t come with cold milk in his veins. He pulls him down to the balcony and caresses his cheek with the barrel of the gun, making him shiver. “Alright. Go on.”

He swallows, going on in his quick, breathy whisper. “We’d gone at a party. Old Capulet’s daughter’s birthday. My cousin Benny wanted to bug the place, and Mercutio always liked that sort of thing - he didn’t really get how serious it is, you know? It was all a big adventure to him. I tried to keep him out, to not take him in public too much, not get mixed up with my family ,but I was scared he would think I was ashamed of him. How could I? So we went, but some Capulet boys noticed it and attacked us in the street. I tried to leave, but Mercutio wouldn’t come. I watched him die. He was stabbed, you know, and the boy panicked and pulled the knife out, there was blood everywhere. I held him while he was dying and stroked his hair and sung to him, but he was mad at me, I could tell.” He sways, leaning a little onto Edmond even if it means pretty much resting his head against the gun. “He was delirious and cursing and mad at everyone there, but I was the one who meddled into the fight and distracted him, with all my whining about stopping. He said, why the devil-”

He sways again. Edmund catches him when his eyes roll back and flutter shut, sighing. He pulls him through the window he must have sneaked out of, throws him on his bed and goes get actual gauze and disinfectant to finish the job. He briefly considers just leaving him to sleep in peace, but he finds he really wants to hear the rest of this. Why he doesn’t know, as seeking out anything else to manipulate this boy is frankly bringing a shotgun to hunt rabbits to what little honor Edmund does feel to have, but he does. He cleans his wounds up and throws half a water bottle on his face to rouse him. Failing that, he jumps back onto the balcony, pulls out the vodka from under his desk and repeats the operation, this time being rewarded by a gasp and a few charming Italian curses. The boy stretches out his arms, as he supposed anyone used to getting comforting and loving embraces would, waking up in pain and soaked. It feels, again, excessively treacherous to give him his wish, so he just barely takes his hand, grasping his fingertips. “Stay awake. You have no business dying.”

The boy blinks, disoriented, then sinks in his face in the pillow. “I should. You know, I- I had a dream, last night. I was lying in my grave, and Mercutio kissed me awake. He was smiling at me. I want to see him again so badly. It’s the only way he’ll forgive me.”

Edmund sighs. “Even if I believed in prophetic dreams, I would hesitate to throw away your life and mine because your subconscious decided it was a good moment to rehearse Sleeping Beauty.” He sits down on the bed, reducing the distance between their faces. Romeo goes slightly pink, he duly notes. Starts fiddling with the gun again, lazily as he speaks, and he almost looks alive.

“I assume you’re here because you killed this boy who stabbed your Mercutio, aren’t you.”

Rose red. The boy lowers his head in shame and stammers. “Not for that exactly. I did, but they never look into Capulets and Montagues getting killed, and the boy was old man Capulet’s nephew on his wife’s side, he wouldn’t claim revenge. It was at Mercutio’s funeral…”

He buries his face in his hands, tears running down his cheeks again. Edmond gently tilts him up with the barrel of the gun under his chin. “Well, go on. After all this trouble I went to save your sorry life, I am more than entitled to a story.”

He swallows, his hands balling into fists. “I tried to go to Mercutio’s funeral. I just wanted to see him once again. But his cousin was there. Paris, silly as that sounds. _What’s this little thug doing here,_ he said, _and have you not made us suffer enough?_ I said I just wanted to see Mercutio one last time. He said I had taken advantage of a mentally unstable boy who didn’t know any better long enough, he said, just to show off how I has corrupted a judge’s son, and then - I’m never going to forget it - can such vanity be pursued further than death? Then I started crying. I hit him or he hit me and he started fighting. On the church yard! I just wanted to get him to stop and get into the church in time, I said we loved each other and it wasn’t fair, I didn’t want to fight. But he said _love each other? He hung around with you for an adrenaline fix, teenage rebellion, and you got him murdered. That’s all there is to it._ And then we were in a pool of blood.”

He’s trembling all over, his teeth chattering, and yet Edmund doesn’t doubt a word. He stares at him in a new light, fascinated, all those delicate hands and wispy angel features thrown in the dust and bloodied and heated up with rage. “Well, that’s good reason not to die.” He points out. “You took two lives for his, and your innocence to booth. There’s more than grand enough a gesture, I think.”

The boy scoffs. “My innocence doesn’t exist anymore than my honor.”

“No. I’d say that one does. It’s a matter of what you decide to do with it first, that’s all.”  
Romeo closes his eyes in exhaustion. Edmond lays down the gun on his chest and plants a mocking kiss on his lips. He starts and Edmond laughs.

“Here’s your precious forgiveness, since it’s the only way you want it. I suppose it’s disappointing, but someone should tell you dreams are lying sacks of shit.” The boys sighs wistfully at that. He doesn’t bother decoding it. ”I'm not your true love, but it will have to do. You need waking desperately”  
He can feel Romeo straighten up and follow him with his eyes, the weight of his confusion and attention like hot, soft silk on his skin. He has to sleep naked that night.

***

Romeo is fairly used to uselessness. He supposes he can’t have much claim to be a lover, not a fighter anymore lately, but however he phrases it, things are such. He's a better fighter than a good number of the boys in his family, to tell the truth, though more averse to it than even Benvolio, but he has been kept from family secrets for his own safety since he was a child, and even then he has no authority, no intimidating factor, no head for numbers and planning or noticing things he would need to be a decent leader.

In his worst nights, he wonders if his father is pleased with this development so he can pick a successor more to his taste. He used to not care, but it’s hard when his heart feels so empty and the one person for whom he was more Romeo than Montague sleeps in a grave he cannot see.  
So, while he does his best to do every little job Mr Glouchester gives him, when they talk about serious business he just curls on the sofa, reading the Eneid and stressing out about all the pages he has left, in a performance art of irony and self-delusion Mercutio would be truly proud of, as if he is going back to school in September and the potential wrath of an imaginary new scary junior year teacher is the only thing he has to worry about. 

“Alright, but I want him to come.”  
Romeo looks up and flushes, something about the way Edmund says _him_ leaving no doubt it’s about him. Edmund is, indeed, looking at him, and he’s slightly mad at himself for guessing right, even if it might just mean he’s learning to read people a bit - but that sounds unrealistic. The truth is that they’ve barely spoken and he has no business noticing things.  
“Oh, ‘mund, he’s a child.” Edgar protests, laughing good-heartedly.

“Yes, children must be taught. He’s not here on a language immersion trip, is he?”  
Romeo fidgets uncomfortably. He hasn’t exactly paid attention to where he would have to go. “Oh, I have absolutely no problem…”

“Then maybe you want to come?” Edmund cuts him off, looking at his brother. Edgar hesitates.

“You know dad’s rule about this.”

“If it’s true they’re spying on us, what better time to shake up the rules?”

Egdar smiles vaguely. “Still, ‘mund, you know putting all our eggs in one basket-”

“That only applies to the good eggs.” Edmund mumbles. “Well, the problem doesn’t present itself, it’s better for the boy to come. He’ll get depressed, being locked in the house like this.”

Romeo looks away, going red. It’s so uncharitable to say Edmund’s mocking him, and pathetically innocent to entertain the thought it might be in earnest, and Romeo is not great at reading between the extremes. Sometimes the night Edmund found him on the roof feels like it’s a dream, the unconscious tantrum of a spoilt child who will take the cruelest comfort and attention over nothing, or the weight of his crimes finally coming for his remaining sanity. His longing to die has faded into less heroic grief and apathy, reluctantly sustained by the awareness that dying now would be wasting Mercutio’s last deed on Earth, and he must certainly have imagined Edmund’s kiss - but the scars on his wrists and the torn up pajama shirt stuffed in his desk drawer confirm that it was, in fact, not a dream, and it hangs between him and Edmund like a heavy old carpet, filling the space with dust and discomfort.

He watches him drive, half hypnotized by the confident movement on his hands, and fiddles uncomfortably with his still unloaded gun, feeling small and useless and frustrated and apparently never apathetic enough not to feel like shit.  
“Don’t…” he breathes out, a little shaky, half stunned by the silence. “Don’t you call your brother ‘gar?”

Edmund throws him a sideways glance and keeps driving, his lips pressed in a thin line.  
“I think that’s a bad word. Is that why?” Edmund sighs and turns up the music - rap too fast for him to understand the words and let the songs tell him anything about him, even admitting he didn’t just pick this playlist to cover his voice better. “No, actually I think it’s a fish.”

He looks down miserably. Benny did always tell him he comes off too strong, but he didn’t imagine he could be any worse after how things started with Edmund specifically, he’s already all open to him, and he would really like to have a friend in all this. 

It reminds him of what he felt when Mercutio was just a pretty, wild eyed stranger wandering to smoke into Montague territory and peep at things that weren’t his business. He feels curiosity gnaw at him like the fox under the Spartan’s tunic in that stupid little story they translated in Greek in his freshman year, the same inability to take his eyes off him in case he misses the slightest revealing movement as he felt then. But it’s worse, because even to his childish, drunk off bad YA novels, fourteen year old brain it was obvious, deep down, that Mercutio wore this aura of mystery like a whiff of glitter over a life that had nothing satisfying to give him and - so he thought, even when Romeo heartily disagreed - nothing for anyone to like. That beneath it there was nothing worse than an impressive inventory of reckless ideas and a propensity for silent, masochistic pining that wasn’t really all that damaging, when compensated with Romeo’s tendency to blurt out his feelings fully unsolicited as soon as he’s half-aware of them

But there’s more and worse with Edmund, and Romeo realizes it might be more than he can handle knowing, but his pride rebels to that - he’s a murderer now and an outcast and he watched his first love bleed out in his arms and he’s no longer the Romeo who can’t handle knowing things. He looks up at Edmund defiantly while he walks him to his assigned position. There are two little nooks dug in the front side of the quay, barely small enough to hide in, above water level but deep down enough he has to stretch out to lift his head above the pier. Romeo curls up in it uneasily.  
“Why did you insist to bring me, when you don’t like my company, nor are you interested in me in the slightest?

He shivers, suddenly half-sure the answer will just be _you’re easy cannon fodder_ , in the face of all his doubts and wonderings. Edmund’s eyes narrow. “Have I given you any hint of that? I apologize, I suppose no one ever accused me of being overly cuddly.”  
He forces himself to not look down or blush. “You’ve been avoiding me since… that night.”

Edmund shrugs, taking his gun to charge it with very smooth and distracting motions. “I supposed it might just make you uncomfortable. It was all quite intimate, and I hardly know you.”

His voice is reduced to a squeaky breath. “Then why call me here? What game is it you’re playing?”

Edmund laughs, tilting his head. “That’s the thing. I hardly know you. That won’t do, if I am to sleep under your window and let you make us pasta unsupervised. Take it as a test, if you will.”

Romeo’s heart twirls in his chest. He’s aware that it might very likely be a test that ends with him being given to whatever fishes are in the Thames, and that this should be a twirl of nervousness and fear, but it’s weirdly exciting - that Edmund even has any interest in that at all.  
"Then tell me what we're doing here tonight." He says, an attempt of commanding tone trying to conceal the fact he let himself be dragged here without any idea of what was going to happen.

Edmund places the gun in his hand, adjusting his grip. "We have supplies coming here by riverboat, but we had a few suspicious interceptions and it's likely someone is spying on us. We're hoping to catch them in the act tonight."

Romeo shivers and clears his throat - is it silly he was expecting this to be something less potentially violent? He straightens up, watching Edmund take his position, and rests his hin upon his knees, eyes lost in the river. He feels that Edmund’s eyes are still on him, although that’s silly, because he must well be paying attention too.

He fiddles with the collar of his shirt - it’s August, dim and foggy and depressing as London may be, and he’s starting to sweat. He struggles to stay in balance, he struggles to breathe, and everytime they shift and it’s Edmund’s turn to glance above the edge of the quay, his heart sinks and flutters like some terrible tragedy is looming over them.  
A shadow peaks out of a side window of the warehouse - slender and furtive, some expendable street kid pressing itself against the wall, pitifully unaware of Edmund and Romeo’s presence. It slips out of the window and starts making round the side of the building, exposed, eyes glinting under the hood.

He stiffens, alarmed, and Edmund smiles at him peeking from his corner, a proud, honey sweet smile, and he realizes how bad the angle would be for him to shoot, how Romeo, rather, has nothing standing in his way, and his hands start trembling. For a moment he wonders if this was intended, if it’s part of the test - but that can’t be, right? Edmund can’t predict the future. He raises his gun abruptly, then realizes he’s too far yet and flattens against the wall, a weight shooting up and settling in his chest, constricting his throat. The way he can feel Edmund’s eyes burning into his spine should be uncomfortable, but he frustratingly can’t see anything wrong with it - he should be grateful. They’ve taken him in, Edmund pulled him off the roof and bandaged his wrists and… and more, and it makes sense all this would start feeling like nothing more than a little favor for a friend, now he’d be at the third body on his hands, doesn’t it?

_Little thug._ he turns the gun in his hand, weakly battling the nausea at the back of his throat. _Little fool_ he thinks again, in something like his father’s voice and aware of how unfair that is, for he never heard such words but in his own mind, yet _little fool thinking he can play at war because he’s a little bloodied up, a little touched in the head, a little haunted and hardened and oh Romeo Romeo are you even still Romeo?_

He had dreamed and dreaded his first murder since he was a child, falling on his bed in trembling fits at the thought of the jokes that would be made, the beers offered to mark his passage into manhood, his mother’s nimble fingers washing the bloody stains, but never from his soul, Benny wrapping him in his arms and wiping his tears with a sigh when he’d unavoidably fall short of said manhood.  
But when it had happened nothing of this had remotely happened - it felt like no one could figure why he had done what he’d done and it was a great inconvenience for everyone, and everyone who had been Mercutio’s friend when he was alive and entertaining now seemed so disapproving of him going to such pains for him, no one had held him or comforted him or acknowledged the events, beyond the logistical scramble to put him on a plane before the police found him. But at least he, for himself, had known it meant something.

Now this, murdering some poor kid who he doesn’t know, who has done nothing to him, and he knows no one will hug him or buy him beer or at least ask if it’s his first, that it will just go to melt like a blood drop in the Thames in a long series of murders of the nameless Glouchester soldier he is now, not anyone’s son or lover or silly little cousin anymore, that it means nothing to him and he means nothing to anyone -

He cries out and throws the gun on the ground. It is not nearly as dramatic and crashing a sound as he had expected, and it’s enough to make the spy scramble and run, but not to alert Edmund right away.  
He watches him run as calm starts expanding in his chest again and, distractedly, considers a leap in the Thames as a quick means of escaping his perspective meaningless existence. The Thames is grayer and bigger than the Adige, but with street lights reflected on them all rivers look alike and lovely, and being softly slowly dragged down by the water feels dreamily sweet compared to cutting his wrists.

He turns away, half disgusted with himself - wandering off into fantasies again. He meets Edmund’s eyes. Something - some seed of shamelessness he certainly wasn’t born with, but maybe Mercutio planted in him - makes him smile for a split second. Then Edmund is on the quay and grabbing him by the collar, his legs swinging over the water. Will he let him go? The dreams of peaceful floating flood his mind again and the effort of keeping his head above water exhausts him so much he slumps over when Edmund pulls him on the quay, half-hugging his knees. Edmund stands back, almost kicking him away and lifts his chin. He feels a faint, undetermined pinprick of amusement for the wild expression of anger and confusion he caused on his face.

“Will you tell me what I’ve done to you, that you’d hate me so much?”

He sniffles, his shamelessness wavering and creaking. He bites his lip to keep it standing, tasting blood. “I don’t. I only… I don’t want to kill anyone else. Is that so wrong?”

Edmund tangles his hands in his hair, pacing in frustration. “Well, I don’t know. If you were as fresh and innocent as a newborn child, then yes, I would understand. But with a body count that I, I admit, couldn’t dream of at your age, yes, I do think pulling this stunt on me is a bit personal.”

“I-” Romeo’s eyes water. It feels so childish and petulant to say he wants it to be on his own terms, to explain the whole business of this not meaning anything. “If… if this was a test, why didn’t you take in account I could fail it?”

Edmund's hand jerks, his face trembling, and he closes his eyes to accept the blow, but nothing comes. Edmund yanks him up instead, almost throwing him down again from the force of it, and drags him back to the car.

He could say something about how vital this mission must truly be if they're abandoning it in the middle of it, but he can't find the energy to care. He curls on the seat and props his chin on his hand and tries not to look at how Edmund's hands tremble with rage on the steering wheel.

He supposes it's too late to not make a pathetic, overdramatic teenager of himself, and as soon as they're home he just sprints up the stairs and throws himself on the bed. He adds dreamily to his fantasy, visualizing flowers strewn in the water, fish swirling underneath him in soothing ripples and tadpoles nibbling at his fingertips and turning into frogs that Benny will take his children to catch in the creek the way they used to when they were younger, once time has tied up all the loose ends over whatever little hole he left in his family's hearts and he can be forgotten in peace.  
Dawn comes with rosy fingers and day comes with blistering heat, and it takes him a ridiculous effort to pull himself up when he hears voices fighting in the kitchen.

He doesn't exactly know why he bothers - this isn't his family, his caring isn't welcome, his heart is a useless piece of meat sapped of all its empathy and protectiveness and whatever it was that made it go around in whirlwinds everyday in happier times and so on.

Still, he peeks out of the banister to see Mr Glochester talk to Edmund, who wears a faltering smirk on his face and artfully bored eyes.  
"Where did this idea comes from? What games are you playing with the honor of our family?“

Mr Glochester yells, and Romeo starts, swallowing, pretty sure he is the idea in question. His hand strikes across Edmund's cheek and Romeo's eyes snap open at the unexpected force of the babbling old man.  
"I keep trying to forget you're bastard, and every day you make me regret it."

The hiss float up the stairs like poisonous smoke. Romeo starts trembling. "I tried my best, I did. Yet you will born a treacherous snake and I should give up pretending you won't go to the other world the same way."  
Edmund's lip bleeds, but he keeps smirking through the hurt in his eyes. Romeo wonders how often he hears this and he feels something that goes well beyond the guilt of having caused this and the expected manly discomfort of witnessing another man's moment of vulnerability.

He starts crying as he locks himself in the room again, but the lazy, silent tears of the past days turn into a storm of angry sobs and he ends up screaming into the pillow, something moving faintly within him that, for the first time since he started being aware of his feelings, he distinctly hates.

***  
***

Edmund tries his best to ignore the rapping at the window, but it makes his head throb and his whole body twitch with residual nerves. He grunts and turns the music up, biting his pen and considering just yelling at him to leave, but he suspects the accursed boy is too stubborn for this.  
“What do you want with me?”

The Montague boy presses his hand against the window pane, his eyes cloudy and pleading. "I brought you a little ice."  
He jerkily throws the window handle upwards and sits back with a frustrated sigh while the boy cautiously slips in, like the sneaking baby fox he is.

He jerks away when he - completely unsolicited, these Italian kids and their _hands_ he swears - presses the ice to his cheek and instinctively covers the letter - last thing he needs is it looking like he wept bitterly all through the writing, and give Raegan even more strange ideas than usual.

Romeo looks down at the desk before he can dissimulate. "Are you writing to your girlfriend?"

He honestly cannot believe what he just heard. Romeo looks down, biting his lip. "No. I definitely am not."

"Then why don't you just text? Handwritten letters are romantic."

He scoffs. "Handwritten letters don't leave a trace in any system and Edgar can't find them when he does his cute brotherly snooping once they left the house."

"What? What are you planning?"

He rubs his temples, wincing, glancing at the open, curious expression on the boy's face.  
"Doesn't matter. Clearly you don't want to be too involved."

He sniffles. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You said something quite smart, actually - I can't blame you for failing a test and I'd rather find it out now than later. I'd rather have loyal people with me, since I am such a snake myself.”

Romeo lets out a sympathetic little half hum-half whimper. “You should not repeat what your father says like this. What's his problem with you even? This whole bastard thing is ridiculous. You don't seem so disloyal to me. 

“Oh, my papa is a romantic, just like you. He never says things as they are. He goes saying that Edgar was born of the pure love of his dutiful wife, and I was born of base lust, but the truth is that Edgar’s mother kissed the ground he walked on and turned the other cheek on his lovers every day until she died, and mine passed his secrets to the police and burned his empire to shreds until he gunned her down in this garden, for everyone to see, and that’s how we came to be this way”

He raises a hand lightly against Romeo’s cheek, a faint bitter grin stretching out on his face, drinking in his eyes - sorrowful, lost and irritatingly interested.  
“Well, now I’ve terrified you” he says, although it isn’t really true. He wonders if there’s anything he could say to terrify him at this point - and yet the slightest hint of frustration in his voice makes him tremble like a wet baby bird. How annoying.

“No, no, you should tell me all you need.”

“Yes. You’re not made to hear such dark and unpleasant things. You’re not made to be one of us. I must suppose my mother wasn’t either, I won’t blame you for it.”

“No, not anymore, really. I’m sorry about leaving you in the situation I did, really, but there’s nothing else for me anymore anyway.”

Edmund sighs, irrationally frustrated. “Why not admit it? There is no point with you being in our way and making yourself so miserable that you quite clearly still want to die.” He ignores the boy’s indignant sounds of protest. “Granted, it's no flattery to realize the company of my family makes you suicidally unhappy, nor that you despise us, but on the other hand, I absolutely understand. Now let’s be frank, my father is a dimwitted old man.” He braces himself for a split second for the question of why he is taking this kind of shit from him then, but he remembers he has no reason to keep his guard so high here.

“I can easily find a way to make him believe your parents have sent for you and get you out of here. I can get you a job at Starbucks, or some very clueless host family and pass you for an exchange student. You would never have to be involved in this life again.”

Romeo hugs himself, painfully unenthused, his eyes fearful. “I do not know. What use would that be?”

He sighs, irritated. “Then what is it you want? You’d be completely free. It shouldn’t be hard to find an escape for you that would make you happy. It’s a big city, and boys your age are supposed to have dreams.”

Romeo grunts in frustration, hiding his face in his hands. “I used to. I don’t. Dreamers often lie. Dreams are lying pieces of shit.”

His lips curve up mechanically, but he feels hollow behind them. “I see you learn, sometimes. Still, this is not particularly helpful to you now. Dreams are better than nothing, even lackluster ones."

Romeo shrugs. “No, it’s just - oh, you don’t care.”

He follows the trail of his curls on his temple, edging closer. “Why not?”

“Just… I don’t think life’s worth living when you don’t have something worth dying or killing for.”

The glint of steel in that dramatic nonsense makes him laugh abruptly. “Ah, I see. And my snakeish leadership is not cutting it. Well, that’s perfectly fair, but it’s only more reason to get out of here without dawdling. Maybe it’s just me being a jealous brat, but I don’t feel like Edgar’s leadership is so chivalrously motivating either.”

Romeo shakes his head, his eyes filling with tears. “It’s just - I hoped it wouldn't have to come to killing again. That it could come to killing every time like this, I- I know I should have expected it, but I thought - all cor gentile rempaira sempre amore- but maybe that’s bullshit, you know? Are poems lying pieces of shit too? Maybe love’s wasted on gentle hearts.”

He stands on his toetips, aiming for his lips, but shivers and kisses the bruise on Edmond’s cheekbone instead. “I’m sorry.”  
Edmund watches him run out the window onto the rooftop, his hair darting, his shadow oscuring the stars, and smiles.

He finds the boy rummaging in the papers he purposefully left open within two days. He gasps and steps back as soon as he sees him, but Edmund only takes his hands and slowly pulls him to himself.  
"I should have known you would." He sighs, although he has been anxiously wondering about it far more than the little use he has for the boy warrants. "Let's make this so. I shall forgive your snooping and you'll forgive the darkness of my soul."

He kisses him, but when he pulls back Romeo doesn't return it. He strokes his cheek, watching the flame of his spirit in his eyes crackle and bend like a little knight vowing himself to a fair lady, lost and now found.

"There is nothing dark about you." He manages to choke out. "I've made my choice. I am with you, if there’s anything I can do.” He says, but Edmund hears _I'll be yours._

He presses a chaste kiss to his forehead.

***

“I can do it myself.”  
He protests while Romeo sets down towels on the sides of the armchair and hands you a shot of some liquor. Since when does the boy know his way to the liquor cabinet? That’s a fine development for sure. He looks up at him, smirking but actually feeling his nerves mount a little.  
“Truly. Bullet wounds are a man’s private business, I’m sure you understand.”  
Romeo shakes his hand in determination. “You’ll be nervous. Your hands will shake and you’ll hurt yourself. Just let me do this one thing for you, mh?”

He wants to tell him that while he, in this situation, might be nervous, Edmund is actually fully prepared, but the assuredness with which he says it is so endearing he protests no further.

He lifts his left arm and gestures to Romeo to come closer, but the boy sits directly in his lap instead and moves the right one, fingers interlacing with his. “This one’s better. It will look like you were giving him your hand in peace.”

He shivers, and cringes at himself for proving the little fool right, but the metal pressed against his skin isn’t helping. He shakes him off. “Try to think of what you’re doing instead of playing little reverse Sherlock, sweetheart. You’ll leave a burn if you shoot so closely. It has to look like a missed hit.”

“Oh.” The boy pouts guiltily, taken aback.

“What, you never shot anyone before?”

He shakes his head. “Only target practice. I never even had a gun.”

“And the Capulet boy?”

He bites his lip white and red. “It was one the river bank, there had been a party… I slit his throat with a shard from a beer bottle.”

Edmund throws his head back and squeezes his eyes, his leg muscles stiffening painfully. “Fantastic. I’ll bleed like a gutted pig” he mumbles, knowing full well that will be more to blame on his heart currently pumping in cartwheels than the boy’s lack of skill.

He spreads both arms out, without bothering to sit back up, but opening his eyes to look at the boy’s hesitant steps, the way he leans towards him as if by magnetic force, tension rippling all the way to his hands - and then he recoils and slams his feet against the floor when the bullet strikes. He’s familiar enough with the feeling, and it’s no more painful than a slingshot throw after a passing moment - but the boy drops on his knees and drops the gun like he has never seen blood before, and it curiously rather makes him imagine him as he must have been at this tragic riverbank murder, soaked red through head to toe and puffing out adrenaline with every gasp. It’s pleasantly distracting as the passing impact turns to the hot pain of a particularly pissed-off bee sting, and the boy runs his cool fingers down his arm, lips parted and eyes bewildered, very pretty but, as most things, far less interesting in reality than fantasy.

“Stop, no,” he scoffs when he reaches for the first aid kit. Romeo snaps up, curls bouncing. “It has to look like it just happened when my father comes. I did tell you that.”  
He touches the wound, this time forcing a small hiss out of him. “But Edmund, the bullet’s half lodged in.”

“Fuck.”  
He closes his eyes and breathes deeply. “Well, whatever. We’re going to have a heartwarming father-son trip to the hospital. What matters is it’s done.”

Romeo holds his hand, fiddles with his fingers and presses them absent-mindedly against his lips just as naturally as he would with his own. “Ed, I-”  
“Ed? Really?”

“I- I used to do this for my cousins sometimes.” He stammers out. “You shouldn’t have to suffer needlessly.”

He sighs. He supposes if he has actually done this he won’t give him sepsis, and that’s at the present moment the farthest he can bring himself to care for his own wellbeing.

“Fine. But you should take the whisky out again.”  
The boy nods, and actually smiles as if he had granted him his lifelong dream. He gives up on questioning.

He lines up every pincers-shaped appliance he finds in the light like shining jewels, then starts poking at his skin, cutting and pinching. He straightens himself up for better light and the shadow of his eyelashes falls on his cheek. The feeling of the cuts goes from pain to pleasant tingle four or five times back and forth, as Edmund bites his lips to not let out any indication of either. He thinks a couple times he can feel the sting hit randomly, near hard enough to draw blood, in places where his skin definitely isn't in the way, but when he looks at Romeo he looks so blank and focused he feels like an idiot. _A sweet daft child you can fool around with butterfly pecks and sweet words. What would you even have with him?_

He averts his gaze, frustrated and maudlin. He almost wants to do it - kiss him and satisfy himself with the fact that's all he needs to keep him excited and invested and willing to live, so there's nothing else to bother doing. He winced through a final rip and the bullet tingles on the ground like a Christmas bell. Romeo caresses his arm and leans down as if he wants to kiss it all better, but he snaps back in a split second, just enough for Edmund to smirk. He gestures at him for whiskey and the boy holds the shot glass directly to his lips, leaving red traces on his chin. He fills one more and Edmund raises his for a toast, but the boy looks down and splashes the content of the glass on all over his wound.

"Fuck!"  
Edmund writhes for a moment, his toes curling so hard he can feel the bones of his feet rattle. "What was that for? There's normal disinfectant there." The boy trembles and keeps looking at the liquor dripping down his arm, his cheeks stained pink and his eyes fully enraptured, and then he smirks tentatively and Edmund feels dizzy - and not from blood loss for sure, for he can feel the proof that he has more than enough blood to spare for unnecessary functions demanding his attention.

He pushes himself on his feet to tidy up and Romeo jumps to help him, almost slamming onto him.  
"Go, go, now." He mumbles irritated. He lies down, splashes blood about and arranges himself to look as if he collapsed in the heat of the fight, the boy kneeling by his side again, a bloody cloth in his hand that won't in any case let him forget.

"My father will be home soon. You should get going."

Romeo looks like a beaten puppy, save from the way his fists tighten, so hard the scars on his wrists pop like veins. "This is your grand moment. I want to see it, I want to be here."

"Go get fish and chips, see the queen's guards, the fucking platform nine and three quarters. Take a walk, see London, tell me what you like about it and what you don't. When you'll come back, this city will belong to me."

His mouth curls in a rosy little O. "What if your father is late and you bleed out?" He speaks again, softer this time. "What if you need me?"

Edmund notices with dread that he does need him terribly right now, but he grits his teeth. "Just trust me."

He pushes himself up and kisses him, close mouthed, barest hint of pressure on his lips. "There, in advance. You're forgiven for my pains and possible death."

Romeo's eyes flutter closed and up again and he nods and leaves, sneaking timid little glances at him as he lies back down. It's still enough to wrap him around his finger, full of surprises as he may be. Trouble is, it starts to not feel enough for Edmund.

***

Someone knocks on Edmund’s bedroom door. He opens and stares at the haphazard blood streaks on the wood, the drops on the floor. In the darkness it looks like his mother’s blood on her fine wedding sheets laid out on the dining table as they wrapped her in to give her to the Thames. _Traitor, murderer_ it says _such you were born and such you will die_  
He straightens up and crosses his arms defiantly. He has not even murdered anyone yet. For now this is only a suit for what is rightfully his, by every right but that of the proper jizz into the proper hole.

He is as firm in his purpose as always, as sure of himself as always and the stars shine into his window as dull-witted and uncaring as always. He closes the door and lies down again. Romeo was there pressed against him just a couple hours ago, anxiously interrogating him on his future plans and his father’s reactions and showing him the pictures he took in Kensington Garden. He’s a little softened up, but he’s also beloved, he thinks smugly. Omens have no business having any power over him.

Knock again. For a moment he feels that he has walked into a wet dream - a pleasant change from the previous nightmare, for sure - as Romeo stands in front of him, covered in blood from head to toe and blinking wildly.

He closes the door and sighs deeply, still half-convinced he should just throw himself on his bed and rub one out, but the boy’s fingers wrap around his wrist and hurt rejection shines in his eyes. The blood stains his wrist and smudges when he touches it and Edmund’s heart sinks.  
He pulls the boy into the room, pressing him down on the floor and rolling up his pajama shirt.

“What happened to you?” He hisses, and then sees the proud tilt of his head and an hint of smirk on his lips. “...what did you do?”

A shot of relief slugs down his veins. Romeo shrugs, looks down and then up and stammers. “I- I sped things up. ”

“Fuck”  
He rises and storms to the door, but Romeo grasps his hand, eyes pleading. “Don’t go into that room. It- it might upset you.”

He lets out a hoarse, nervous laugh. He wonders why he’s still making such an effort to be quiet - there is no one to hear them anymore. “Romeo” he mutters, cupping his cheek, closing his eyes to focus. “You little fool. I’m understanding things right? You’ve killed my father, sweetheart?”

He sniffles and nods. Edmund slows hides his face in his hands. He feels a tremor going down his arms and for a moment he wonders if he would, in fact be upset. Is this feeling of confidence really enough to lower his guards like that? Would he look down over his father’s face - fairly ruined, probably, how did the child get so bloody killing someone in his sleep - and be disgusted with himself, regret everything? Would he burn the evidence, give the boy over to the cops and prepare for Edgar to come?

“Why did you do this? We had a plan, didn’t we?” he whispers, taking Romeo’s hand in his.

The boy bites his lip bashfully, then throws his head up, a painful affectation of defiance in his eyes. “A needlessly cruel plan.”

He rolls his eyes, irritation creeping up his throat. “And? You were fully aware of it. I believe I did not threaten you, but left you ample opportunity to step back if your delicate sensibility required it.” He doesn’t think of how it would have made him miserable, he has no time for that.

The pressure on his hand makes Romeo wince, but he doesn’t falter. “I don’t care for that. It was cruel to yourself and cruel to me, to allow him to still make you suffer for God knows how long.”

He feels his throat constricting, his mouth drying up, his words coming out strangled and bewildered. “Why would he make me suffer? What do you think this whole plan was for? I am the favorite one now.”

Romeo blinks and reddish pink tears go down his face. “But would that be enough for you? You could be content with just being beloved for a falsehood, and not being hurt just because you cannot show him who you really are?”

Edmund pants, his head spinning. He figures that it would, in fact, have been nice enough, and it wouldn’t have stopped being nice under every sarcastic comment he would have made about it and it wouldn’t have stopped even when Reagan gave him his father’s eyeballs on a dish. His knees almost buckle under the weight of how pathetic that is, how open and judged he feels in front of Romeo’s bright innocent eyes, only loving for the sake of love sincere and unconditional, and he half collapses, half pushes Romeo against the wall, his head thudding, his father's blood soaking Edmund's arms and chest. His hand squeezes tight around his cheeks. “Fucking little bastard” he spits out. “I’ve trusted you with my secrets, I've given you a reason to live. How could you do this to me?”

“I love you!” Romeo shrieks in the darkness, his hands trembling as they look helplessly for Edmund’s, bracing himself fo a blow he’s too stunned to deliver.

He sobs softly, lowering his head. “I know. I know Reagan" there's a sourness in his voice that would make him laugh in another situation, the way he straightens up defiantly "- I know you had your own plans for it to happen. I know you don’t really need me all that much. But I could not stand not being the one who did this for you.”

He lets go for a moment, startled, then grasps Romeo’s shoulders again, no gentler, and kisses him against the wall, his hands melting against his hips like water. He kisses his neck and shoves him, letting him drop on his knees, trembling forehead pressed against Edmund’s legs.

“I could do anything for you.”

He can’t remember ever hearing anything so pure and so overwhelming directed to him, and he thinks after all they can easily find a way to make it look like Edgar sent an assassin and after all, the finer details of the plan are unimportnt when the core is already here. He owns someone, and he is beloved.

"I did not think to go seek out your brother. I would rather - he has done nothing to you, although I know he is not as worthy as you are, but he was never anything but kind to me, and I’d rather he just never came back here. But if I- if you need me to kill him too-"

"No, no, my sweetheart." He leaned down to kiss Romeo's forehead, making him sigh softly. "You have already done so much for me. I would not ask this of you."

He strokes his silky curls behind his ears, then grasps his hands and raises him up. His legs tremble and he’s biting his lips with desire and pain and Edmund doesn’t know which is lovelier.

He kneels in his place, smirking.  
"Or at least, not unrewarded."

**Author's Note:**

> Title and quote (just the original Italian of the title) are from this poem: https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1562885/within-the-gentle-heart-abideth-love-guido-guinizelli-1240-1476/  
> Story of the Spartan and the fox and fun history stuff for who's interested here: https://quatr.us/greeks/spartan-boy-fox-story.htm
> 
> To summerdayghost - his was a very experimental work for me in many ways, and I hope I managed to get this into the realm of what you were hoping for. It was definitely fun and challenging, and I want to thank you for prompting Shakespeare crossovers. Of course I'm open to constructive criticism from anyone!


End file.
